Thai officials yesterday confirmed that another woman had caught bird flu, but played down fears of the first case of human-to-human transmission of the deadly virus following the deaths of two of her relatives.
The woman, who had been in contact with dead chickens, was the second Thai confirmed with the deadly H5N1 form of the virus in the second wave of the disease that has hit the region, according to Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan.
The woman's 11-year-old niece and the girl's mother died this month of pneumonia but were listed as suspected bird flu cases, prompting fears by the World Health Organization (WHO) that the disease had spread between humans for the first time.
The worst-case scenario that concerns the WHO is that the virus could mutate into a highly contagious form and trigger a global human flu pandemic if Asian nations fail to act swiftly and effectively against the outbreak.
But the Thai government said the woman now recovering in a hospital, Pranom Thongchan, had been in contact with dead birds and that there was no evidence she caught the disease from relatives.
"She had been in contact with dead chickens together with her niece who died earlier," the minister said.
Test results were expected within a week to show if her two relatives had died from bird flu, which has killed at least nine people in Thailand and 19 in Vietnam this year.
"The human-to-human transmission is an assumption. We do not have evidence to prove there is transmission between humans," said Charal Trinvuthipong, director general of disease control. "Even international organizations do not conclude this assumption. We will not hide information; we will tell the truth when we have clear information."
The 28 deaths so far have been linked to close contact between infected birds and humans. While the disease spreads quickly between birds, no human-to-human cases had been detected in Asia.
The Thai transmission scare was prompted by the Sept. 12 death of the 11-year-old girl in Kamphaeng Phet province, 358km northwest of Bangkok.
The girl's mother, who lived near Bangkok but visited her daughter in hospital and then attended her funeral, returned to the Thai capital, where she fell ill and died.
There had been doubts whether the aunt or the mother had been in contact with dead or dying birds that exposed them to bird flu.
"The laboratory results for the mother and her daughter will take about a week," Charal said.
"We could not confirm whether they had bird flu, or whether it was transmitted from daughter to mother. We need further investigation to prove whether the mother had been in contact with chickens or not."
Six Asian nations have reported resurgent outbreaks of the deadly virus since July after the first wave earlier this year resulted in huge losses to Asian poultry industries.
More than 100 million birds have died this year during efforts to fight the disease, which experts have warned is endemic in the region.
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